Many software applications retrieve, manipulate and store information in databases. The architecture and function of these software applications, like other software systems, inevitably evolve due to changes in the business logic, performance optimization and other reasons.
Generally, a database schema defines a data structure of a database. Often, a database administrator (DBA) and/or a software developer apply a Data Definition Language (DDL) statement, such as a Structured Query Language (SQL) statement, that modifies the database schema. A change to the database schema can often cause the software application that utilizes the database to run inefficiently, cause runtime errors or fail, negatively impacting the operations of an organization. Therefore, in order to determine if a software application code modification is needed, it would be beneficial for the DBA and/or the software developer to understand the impact that the database schema change may have on the software application that accesses the database. However, there is currently a lack of adequate Integrated Development Environment (IDE) support to sufficiently determine this impact.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide a technology to assist the DBA and/or the software developer in identifying the software application code that needs to be changed or behaves differently, as a consequence of the database schema change. It would also be desirable to provide a technology to provide automatic transformations, or at least hints for the transformation of the code, to accommodate the database schema change.